Monday, February 22, 2010

Married Catholic priest will be Nashville diocese's first

Prentice Dean will be ordained as a Catholic priest on Monday — while his wife watches.

The former Episcopal priest and father of two will become the first married priest in the Nashville diocese.

He resigned from the Episcopal Church because he thought the denomination had moved away from traditional Christianity.

He converted to Catholicism five years ago, and, after Monday, he'll be celebrating Mass, hearing confessions and handling all the responsibilities of a priest.

Since the 1980s, the Roman Catholic Church has allowed former Episcopal priests, like Dean, to be ordained under a special provision.

Church leaders say the provision is an act of grace toward converts.

But some wonder why that same grace isn't extended to former Catholic priests who left the ministry to marry.

Right now, about 100 married former Episcopal priests have been ordained. Still, the vast majority of the more than 40,000 priests in the United States are celibate.

The tradition of celibacy is rooted in the Bible.

Jesus never married, and the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that marriage is a distraction from serving God.

Eventually, Christians were divided on the issue. Greek-speaking Christians allowed priests to marry before they were ordained. Latin-speaking Christians, on the other hand, required celibacy.

That split continues today.

Roman Catholics from the Latin rite tradition, which includes most of the world's Catholics, require celibacy.

But Eastern Rite Catholics allow married men to become priests, as do Orthodox Christians.

Bishop David Choby of the Diocese of Nashville supports Dean's ordination but he believes that it's difficult for a minister to be both a husband and a good pastor. That view is based, in part, on his conversations with Protestant ministers.

"They've told me at times that they felt torn between the needs of their family and the needs of their parishioners,'' Choby said.

John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, said the debate over married priests continues among Catholics. "It's always on a slow boil," he said.

Catholic bishops in Third World countries have asked the pope to allow them to ordain married men because of the continuing worldwide shortage of priests, Allen said.

In the United States, there is one priest for about every 1,300 Catholics.

In sub-Saharan Africa, that number jumps to one priest for every 7,800 Catholics.

The bishops have asked for permission to ordain so-called "tested men" as priests.

These would be long-standing Catholics who are married, and considered pillars of their community.

"So far, Rome has said no," Allen said.

Why not accept all?

The Rev. Edward Breen, pastor of St. Edward Catholic Church in Nashville, said if the church is going to allow some married men to be ordained, then why not others.

Breen says he knows many former Catholic priests who left the ministry to get married but remain faithful members of the Catholic Church. With a priest shortage, he thinks many of them could return to the priesthood and be of great help.

"They should be allowed to return and welcomed back," Breen said.

But that isn't likely to happen anytime soon because changes in the celibacy rules are rare.

The pastoral provision for Episcopal priests was created by Pope John Paul II in the 1980s after a shakeup in the Episcopal denomination.

In 1976, when the Episcopal Church decided to start ordaining women, conservative Episcopalians left and began converting to Catholicism.

In some cases, entire parishes decided to split from the Episcopal Church and wanted to take their priests with them. That was a problem, because their priests were married. So, they wrote to the pope and asked for help. That's when the pope created the exception.

But there are no guarantees for Episcopal clergymen that they'll be accepted as Catholic priests.

"Conversion comes first," Choby said. "Then we can talk about vocation."

Former Episcopal priests have to live as lay Catholics for at least two years before they can apply for a dispensation from the requirement to be celibate.

That permission has to come from the pope.

And the ordinations come with some restrictions. In most cases, married priests cannot be pastors of a Catholic parish, and they can't remarry if they are widowed.

Allen said there are good reasons, both practical and theological, to have celibate clergy.

"They are available 24/7, in a way that married men are not," he said.

Tori Harris, a 21-year-old Catholic student at Belmont University, thinks it's best for priests to remain celibate, but she is not opposed to some exceptions.

Being married may be an advantage for Dean, said Harris, a native of Baton Rouge, La. Her home parish had a married priest when she was growing up.

"He'll have some experience that will help him relate to his parishioners," Harris said.

Family came first

After he is ordained, Dean will continue his job as vice chancellor at the diocese while trying to maintain a semblance of normal family life with his daughters and Teresa, his wife of 27 years.

The two met at a friend's New Year's Day party in 1982. He had considered the ministry but decided to focus on raising a family.

In his early 40s, the call to the ministry returned.

The Deans moved to Sewanee, Tenn., in 2000 so he could attend divinity school at the University of the South. After graduation, he became rector of St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Manchester, Tenn.

In seminary, Dean became concerned about his denomination. What troubled him most was that there seemed to be no authority that could tell Episcopalians what theology was right and what was wrong.

While at St. Bede's, he began meeting with a former Episcopal priest who had converted to Catholicism. The more he learned, the more he was drawn to the Catholic Church.

In 2005, he took a leap of faith, resigned as pastor of St. Bede's and became a Catholic.

Although Dean says that decision eased his soul, it came at quite a cost. He was left with no job, few prospects and college bills for two daughters.

Dean knew about the pastoral provision, but was given no promises that it would apply to him. "We left everything in God's hands," he said.

Leaving the Episcopal Church was a bit like dying, Dean said.

He'd left his call to ministry and wondered if he'd ever regain that part of his life.

"When we got that letter, it was resurrection," he said.
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